Amazon Prime’s supernatural survival thriller, The Rig has returned with its second season and has massively changed up the equation between the surviving crew and the seemingly omnipotent primeval microorganism—the Ancestor—by the end. In the first season finale, the survivors of Kinloch Bravo found themselves to be back at square one as they end up heading towards another rig, as Pictor Energy, the company whose greedy resource exploitation tactics are responsible for awakening the Ancestor, seems to have major plans to evade accountability for their actions and counter the microorganism. The first season ended with Baz sacrificing himself while attempting to communicate with the Ancestor and convince it of humanity’s willingness to change, and a series of mining explosions and rampant oil extraction by Pictor causing a mega tsunami that wipes the coastal areas of the North Sea off the map. Now with the future of the world at stake, the second season broadens the scope of the narrative, and the crew finds themselves assuming the role of protectors of the Ancestor.
Spoilers Ahead
Revelations About the Ancestor and Coake’s Plan
Following the events of season one, the survivors of Kinloch Bravo and Kinloch Charlie are airlifted to a rig in the Arctic Sea, also owned by Pictor, and Coake wastes no time trying to buy the loyalty of the survivors by offering them monetary compensation in exchange for them signing an NDA. Coake is working as an enforcer of Darian York, a chief executive of Pictor who wants to climb the proverbial ladder by ensuring the biggest impediment for the company—the Ancestor—is completely wiped out. Pictor is trying to assume control over the entire seabed, and as the second season reveals that the Ancestor is spread across the world through a neural hive mind-like link—much like Eywa, the tree deity in “Avatar”—it poses a major problem for the company’s future plans.
As Rose, Magnus, and Fulmer look further into the mysteries regarding the Ancestor with the help of Askel, a scientist in the Arctic rig, it is further revealed that, contrary to their initial assumption, the Ancestor is not Earth’s purging force—it didn’t cause the five mass extinction events; instead, it acted as a rejuvenating force that brought forth new lifeforms every time mass extinctions threatened the existence of global megaflora and megafauna. With the Ancestor spread across the world, the Arctic apparently harbors its strongest junction—dubbed as the Heart of the Ancestor. Coake plans to destroy the heart by initiating the second phase of Project Cirein—using the same toxic poison from season one to corrupt the Heart and spread the damage through the entire interconnected hive mind structure. Coake had previously sent a rover into the arctic seabed with the intention of poisoning the heart, but the Ancestor damaged it in self-defense. Now with the rig crew at his disposal, Coake forces two members of the crew—Dale and Easter—to retrieve the data drive from the rover, which was previously sent. Magnus manages to save the duo when the Ancestor launches an attack on them, considering them to be attackers as well. While the crew remains unaware of Coake’s true intentions and has no option except to buy into his lies that the previous rover was sent for mining operations, Dale manages to learn that the data retrieved from the rover actually contains details of precise coordinates of the heart of the Ancestor and also the programming codes of an ROV, which will launch the Cirein 2.0 mission and poison the heart.
Shifting Alliances: Lennox’s True Motives
The second season introduces Morgan Lennox, the CEO of Pictor Energy,, who is willing to pivot the company’s direction to renewable energy after genuinely sympathizing with the plight of the people who lost everything in the aftermath of the mega tsunami. While Lennox decides to play her cards close to her chest for a while, resulting in suspicions arising regarding her motivations, eventually it is revealed that she is at the Arctic to assume complete control—but for reasons that don’t align with the intentions of her company, as it is revealed later she wants the Arctic seabed to remain inaccessible to other companies. Unlike York and Coake, who intend to destroy the Ancestor, she wants to preserve it, but eventually the board of directors of Pictor strips her of power and control after learning her ulterior motive, and York finds himself the operational chief.
Fulmer, who was infected by the Ancestor in the previous season, continues to see mysterious visions, and a poorly contrived argument between him and his lover, Rose, makes way for Coake to bring him to Pictor’s side by promising him to get the Ancestor out of his system. Fulmer was actually playing the long game by trying to win Coake’s trust, and following his instructions, Fulmer gives the data drive to him by retrieving it from Dale. However, Dale gave him a fake drive, causing Coake to approach Dale himself to threaten him with consequences. Dale ends up killing Coake in self-defense, but the drive is obtained by Bremner, one of the crew members on York’s payroll. In a struggle to obtain the drive from Bremner, Rose ends up getting shot to death.
Did The Ancestor Survive?
Cate and Hutton spent most of the season on the mainland, as Cate needed to search for her wife, Kacey, who was one of the victims of the mega tsunami that ravaged the North Sea coastline. After battling anxiety and desperation—due to being unable to find Kacey among the survivors—Cate eventually reunites with Kacey, who is grievously injured condition. The tsunami survivor camp is receiving significant press coverage, and Lennox decides to use this as a platform as she outs her company in the media in order to stop York from initiating the Cirein 2.0 protocol. She acknowledges Pictor Energy’s role in the overexploitation of the North Sea, which was the primary reason behind the tsunami.
York is able to twist Lennox’s words by throwing the ex-CEO under the bus, thereby securing the reputation of the company, and with Bremnar’s help, he is able to initiate Cirien 2.0 by launching an ROV to inject toxin to infect the Ancestor. Magnus incapacitates Bremner by shooting him, but he is too late to stop the ROV from being launched.
On the other hand, Rose appears to have infected herself with Ancestor, which ends up reviving her from a near-death situation. After all, it was only Rose and, to some extent, Magnus, who didn’t want to antagonize the bio-organism from the get-go, and as a geologist, Rose had a better understanding of the entity’s functionality, which is why it was easier for her to willingly accept the Ancestor in her system. After her rebirth, Rose reconciles with Fulmer, and the Ancestor-infected couple decides to save the heart of the Ancestor before it’s too late. However, as they reach the exact location, they find out the damage has already been done, but despite that being the case, the heart miraculously receives Rose, wearing a specialized pressure suit, as she approaches and touches it. Rose risks her own life in the process, as the rover loses power, the more the duo spends time in the crushing depth at the bottom of the sea.
The Ancestor awakens, and the glorious display of the entire interconnected bio-mechanism, illuminating the darkness of the submarine depths, which visually represents a world tree-like structure, stuns Fulmer and Rose. Eventually, the connected branches of the Ancestor illuminate the seas across the world, which signifies that not only has the organism survived repeated attempts to poison it, but now it has announced its presence to the entire world. York’s plan to assume control and continue the malpractices of Pictor Energy is thwarted in the most spectacular fashion as a result, although Lennox warns Magnus and co. that the company will continue its pursuit to take down the life-rejuvenating entity to orchestrate its evil plans. It should be mentioned that Rose and Fulmer are rescued by Magnus and his team at the end, and the crew decide to set up base at the arctic rig for the time being—motivated by the purpose of protecting Ancestor from external threats.
The World is Aware of Ancestor’s Presence
However, the ending reveal of The Rig season 2 indicates that Pictor isn’t the only conglomerate the crew needs to be wary of. The entire world is now well aware of the existence of the Ancestor, thanks to the entity’s display of underwater rings and illumination. Governments of different nations, power-hungry moguls, and seedy corporates will begin hovering like vultures if the next chapter of the saga is greenlit in the future, and the rig crew will have to deal with enemies on all fronts. There is a possibility that some twisted mind will try to exploit the Ancestor for their selfish gains, creating life-saving drugs to profit from its rejuvenating powers and whatnot. The third season will be bigger in scope and hopefully will shed light on the history and mechanism of the mysterious primeval entity. Also, the prospect of showing the sixth mass extinction unfold on screen, and how the Ancestor helps nature start anew is such a promising spectacle I bet showrunners would like to showcase in the future.
